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On the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Louise Sarsfield Collins writes that accidental nuclear detonation is a much more pressing threat than nuclear war. We all know that Japan was the first country the US dropped nuclear bombs on. What fewer people know is that the second country the US […]

By Louise Sarsfield Collins
Last month a cannon ball from the Spanish Armada washed up on a beach in Sligo. This munition dating from the 1500s was still intact although happily, without a cannon to fire it, not particularly dangerous to handle. It got me thinking however about more modern explosive remnants of war (ERW)…

Sadako Sasaki (7 January 1943-25 October 1955) was a Japanese girl who was two years old when the atomic bomb was dropped on 6 August 1945, near her home in Hiroshima, Japan. Sadako was at home when the explosion occurred, about one mile from where the bomb landed but didn’t suffer any injuries at the […]

On Thursday 24 April, the Republic of the Marshall Islands filed 9 separate, but related, cases against the 9 States with nuclear weapons. The Marshall Islands were the site of numerous Nuclear Weapons tests in the 1940’s and 1950’s, the effects of which are still felt today. The cases taken against the 5 States that […]

Today as the sun rises over Dublin, for another summer’s day, I think of what it must have been like in Hiroshima on 6 August 1945; people on their way to school, on their way to work; carrying out household chores – going about their everyday lives.

“We do our utmost, risking the lives of our staff to rescue who we can, but we cannot end the conflict. As ever, humanitarian organisations are a sticking plaster, not the solution.” Jacques de Maio, ICRC Head of Delegation in Israel and Occupied Territories

Nuclear weapons have massive destructive power, as the secretary general of UN referred to them – they are “the world’s deadliest weapons”. The experience of victims of nuclear weapons (both deployed weapons and weapons testing) should have convinced us that this weapon is a threat to humankind and we should simply eliminate them from the […]

This week States are meeting in Mexico for the second conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons. They will hear from a range of actors, including the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), about the devastation that nuclear weapons would have not only on victims in the immediate vicinity of a detonation (albeit […]

When people disappear in connection with armed conflict or other violence, their relatives endure terrible suffering as they struggle to find out what happened. Here are five examples of International Humanitarian Law that aid the missing and their families: 1. Renewing contact with family members Article 26 of Geneva Convention IV states that, each Party […]

Whilst we are at the distribution centre, we are met by a man whom we know simply as Kareem’s father. He invites us to his house. Kareem Jabour was a volunteer with the Red Crescent in Syria. He lost his life eight months ago in Jaramana, while he was trying to move people injured in […]